


Labyrinth

by searchingwardrobes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Inspired by Smallville, Mental Institutions, season 7 speculation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 04:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11410584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchingwardrobes/pseuds/searchingwardrobes
Summary: One moment, a curse is bearing down on him, and the next Killian Jones wakes up in a mental hospital. They say every thing he has ever known to be true is a fantasy. But surely that's part of the curse . . . right? Inspired by the Smallville episode of the same name.





	Labyrinth

**Author's Note:**

> * My binge-watching of Smallville created this fic, but it isn't necessary to know a thing about that show to enjoy this story. It closely follows the plot of the episode Labyrinth when something similar happened to Clark. I also included two Easter eggs - well, 3 technically - but those are just fun little things for Smallville fans. Any CS shipper can enjoy this story.  
> * This truly is just a one-shot. I can not juggle anymore MCs or series right now!

              Killian Jones smiled as he brought his cup of coffee to his lips, gazing out of the bay windows to the view of the sea. He could hear Emma’s footsteps above him as she padded across the nursery on the second floor. Through the baby monitor on the coffee table, he could hear her coo a good morning to the baby. His smile widened when little Chloe babbled a response. The voices of the two lasses he loved most in this world quieted on the monitor as the rocking chair began to squeak. In his mind’s eyes, he could see Emma holding Chloe to her breast as she nursed her, rocking slowly back and forth. She would smile down at their wee one, touching a finger lightly against the baby’s soft cheek.

              The family’s golden retriever bounded down the stairs, its claws click-clacking on the hard wood floor. The dog nuzzled against Killian’s hook, giving the cool steel a lick.

              “Morning, Shelby,” Killian chuckled, giving the dog a pat of greeting.

              The dog sat on her haunches, contently waiting by Killian’s side for him to finish his morning coffee. She waited there patiently, and then Killian would rinse out his mug and fill her bowl with kibble. It was their daily routine.

              But suddenly Shelby whimpered, turning her head towards the front door. She rose onto all fours, fur bristling as she stalked forward. She stopped directly in front of the door and let out a low, deep growl. Killian arched a brow.

              “What is it, girl? You hear something I don’t?”

              Killian set his mug on the coffee table and went to the dog who was now scratching at the door, whimpering once again. Killian opened it, and Shelby bounded on to the front porch, barking wildly. Killian stepped out cautiously, hook raised. He had a bad feeling about this. He strode to the top of the porch steps, his eyes widening as he saw what was barreling down the street straight for the house. He turned and raced back inside.

              “Emma!” he screamed.

              His wife was at the top of the steps, clutching the baby in her arms. Chloe was wailing, her cries different than any Killian had heard before. Cries of fear.

              “Killian! Behind you!” Emma screamed.

              He turned as the billow of crackling smoke poured through the front door. This curse was different than all the rest, pounding against him like a physical force. With the names of his wife and daughter on his lips, Killian fell backwards, his head smashing against the floor.

                            *************************************************************

              Still on his back, Killian’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked at the harsh fluorescent light swinging overhead. Two men he didn’t recognize were leaning over him. One had a round face, soft with fat and sprinkled with red facial hair. The other had a long, thin face and large ears. Both had dull, unfocused eyes and laughed maniacally.

              “Did the curse get you?” chuckled the chubby one.

              “Yeah,” the other one said, giving a high-pitched giggle, “which realm did you wake up in?”

              Killian sat up, utterly confused, to find himself on a cold, linoleum floor surrounded by a group dressed in white. They were seated in folding chairs in a circle around him. Killian scrambled to his feet, taking in the room. This made no sense. It was a large, colorless room. Industrial, with bars on the windows. Everyone was dressed in plain white pants and shirts. Kilian looked down. Including him.

              “Where am I?” he muttered. “Where are Emma and Chloe?”

              “Gentleman please sit,” a cultured voice asked gently, and the two men shuffled to chairs and dutifully sat. Killian refused.

              “What the bloody hell is going on?”

              “I don’t know, Captain Hook,” the man with the red beard chuckled, “but this ain’t the Jolly Roger!”

              The man’s words rose in hysterical volume as he spoke, and the others in the circle joined in his laughter.

              “What realm am I in?” Killian roared, “What did this curse do?”

              “Which curse,” giggled the thin one, “the one that the Queen of Hearts protected you from? Or the one you cast when you were a _dark one_?” The man used air quotes around the final title.

              “Oh, oh, I know,” the chubby one squealed, clapping his hands, “it was the one that separated him from his _true love_.”

              Killian’s anger rose as a hand rested on his shoulder. He turned to a man with a white beard, dressed in a tweed suit. “Killian,” he said softly, “why don’t you sit back down.”

              Killian stumbled away from him, “What happened to me? Who are you?”

              The man raised his hands in supplication as if Killian were a wild colt who might kick him in the head. “I’m Dr. Hudson. You were just telling us about your dog barking and the smoke coming. Then you blacked out for a minute.”

              Killian noted the man giving an almost imperceptible nod over Killian’s left shoulder. He whirled instinctively as two muscular orderlies stepped forward. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he warned, lifting his hook aloft. Then he started. There was no hook at the end of his left arm. Just a stump of flesh. Not even the end of his brace. Just a scared, mutilated stump. Fairly fresh, like the days and weeks right after Milah’s demise.

              “No,” he gasped in a shuddered breath.

              When the orderlies grasped him by the arms, he fought, or tried to. Tried to think of Emma and Chloe and the fact that he needed to find them before something horrible happened. But in his haze of confusion, his reflexes just weren’t what they should have been. And soon he was being dragged down a sterile hallway and thrown into a padded cell.

                            *******************************************************

              Killian was pacing his cell when a face appeared in the tiny barred window in the center of his door. He commanded that Killian step back. Killian obeyed, but planted his feet in readiness. When the orderly stepped through, Killian charged. The man easily tossed him across the floor, and Killian groaned. His body felt so sluggish. As if he had been asleep for a century. Dr. Hudson strode through the room shaking his head. He gestured to two more orderlies, and before Killian knew what was happening, they had him in a strait jacket and seated in a chair. Dr. Hudson paced in front of him.

              “Killian,” the doctor sighed as he wiped his glasses on a handkerchief from his pocket, “you really must stop all this fighting. Let me help you.”

              Killian jerked against his bonds, “Where is my family?”

              The doctor sighed, then in resignation set a manila folder on the table before Killian. He took out a photograph and help it up for Killian to see. Killian’s vision blurred with tears to see the smiling faces of his wife and daughter. But then he shook his head. The photo was one of those cheesy ones taken in a studio at a department store, with the three of them seated together with Killian’s hand resting awkwardly on Emma’s shoulder. The kind Emma always made jokes about. The photos in their home were all candid shots. He narrowed his eyes as he looked closer – and that was his _left_ hand.

              “That picture is fake.”

              “No,” the doctor said softly, “it isn’t.”

              He pulled another item from the file – a newspaper clipping. The headline read, “Young Mother and Infant Die in Fatal Crash.” Killian leaned over it, confusion marring his brow. There was a picture of a car wrapped around a tree and a smaller photograph of a laughing Emma blowing a kiss onto Chloe’s cheek.

              “No,” Killian argued, shaking his head, “that never happened. It was morning. We were all just waking up, and the curse came –“

              “Killian,” the doctor interrupted, splaying his hands across the top of the table, “you must pull yourself out of this fantasy world you’ve created. Your wife and daughter were killed, and you lost your hand. Ever since, you’ve been in this mental hospital, thinking you’re Captain Hook and everyone you know and love are story book characters.”

              “I’m not crazy!” Killian cried out, wincing when he realized his voice sounded exactly that.

              The doctor stood and strode to the sink in the corner of the room. He picked something up as he spoke, “Your wife wasn’t Emma Swan, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.”

He turned and in his hand was a bottle of hand soap – “Swan Soap” it said on the bottle. He walked across the room and set the bottle on the table. Killian blinked as he stared at it, his mind flipping over.

Dr. Hudson resumed his seat across from Killian. “Her name was Emma Nolan, before she married you, and her parents were two ordinary people named David and Mary Margaret Nolan.”

“What about Henry?”

The doctor smiled. “You mean Henry Mills? Our janitor?”

The doctor gazed at Killian intently with hazel eyes that seemed to swirl with multiple colors. The room seemed to spin and Killian felt suddenly dizzy. Then there was a knock at the door, and Killian jerked as if suddenly awakened from a dream. A nurse bustled in with a clipboard in her hand. The doctor scribbled something, and the nurse glanced hesitantly at Killian with the same look he had seen on the face of all the orderlies. A look of fear and disgust. Killian blinked when he saw the nurse’s nametag – Regina.

“You see, Killian,” the doctor continued, standing to his feet as the nurse left, “you’ve taken bits and pieces of the things around you to create this fantasy of yours. But it isn’t real. Your wife and child are not out there waiting to be rescued. They’re dead.” Dr. Hudson reached under Killian’s mattress, pulling out a well-worn book. “The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get well.”

He tossed the slender volume onto the table before Killian and left. It was a copy of J.M. Barrie’s _Peter Pan_.

              *******************************************************

Killian shuffled forward in the medication line, feeling a hopelessness he hadn’t felt since the days of seeking revenge against the Crocodile. If those days were even real. Killian wasn’t sure any more. At least now he was out of the strait jacket. He had decided to at least play nice.

“Don’t take the medicine they give you,” hissed a voice behind him.

Killian ignored it. If he _wasn’t_ crazy, everyone else here was. Best to keep a low profile and ignore the other patients.

“You’re not crazy – _Hook_ ,” the person continued.

There was something about the voice that sounded clearer, more steady than the voices of the other patients. He turned tentatively to see a young man in his twenties with brown hair and eyes smiling at him. Something about the face seemed familiar to him. He narrowed his eyes to study the man more closely.

“Henry?” he said tentatively.

The young man’s eyes lit up, “Yeah, it’s me. I’m here to rescue you.”

Killian shook his head to clear it, trying to process this latest development. He had looked in the mirror since waking up in this place, and he could clearly see he hadn’t aged at all. How was Henry . . .

Before he could complete that thought, two orderlies came up behind Henry and grabbed him. “Believe in yourself!” Henry shouted before the men jabbed a syringe into his neck. They then dragged him through a heavy, locked door. It all happened so fast, Killian was rooted in place for a moment.

Then suddenly, Henry’s words surged through him. _Believe in yourself!_ He wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t weak. He was pirate Captain Killian “Hook” Jones, and his family needed him. He scanned the room as he stepped out of the medicine line. He saw a janitor unlocking the supply closet with a huge ring of keys. He grinned to himself in delight as he remembered all the times he had watched _Star Wars_ with Henry. He couldn’t do the Wookie prisoner gag alone, but he could at least pose as a Stormtrooper . . .

              **************************************************

Killian stumbled across the snow with Henry leaning heavily against his shoulder. Not only had they heavily drugged the lad, but they had also beat him pretty severely. Henry had a gash across his forehead that was currently trickling blood down the sleeve of the janitor’s uniform Killian was wearing. And based on the way he kept wincing and holding his side, Killian was pretty sure Henry also had a few cracked ribs.

Shouts sounded behind them, and Killian knew the hospital guards were gaining fast. He didn’t know why his body was so weak, but it was, and the added weight of his boy didn’t help. Killian prayed to whatever gods would listen for intervention. They needed a miracle.

Suddenly, a sedan spun to a stop in front of them, tires squealing. The back door opened, and a dark-haired little girl leaned out. “Hurry! Get in!” she cried.

“Lucy,” Henry groaned, his voice laced with affection. Whoever this little girl was, apparently, they could trust her. And, Killian hoped, whoever was driving.

Killian shoved Henry into the backseat as gently as he could under the circumstances, then slid in himself. The driver turned to face him, her familiar penciled eyebrows arched and a half smile on her lips.

“Good to see you again, pirate.”

“Regina?”

“Um, can everyone catch up later?” the little girl interrupted. “Cause those guys have guns.”

She didn’t have to tell Regina twice. The queen put the petal to the metal just as shots rang out. She flew through the gates of Dreamshade Mental Hospital – Killian rolled his eyes at the irony – and turned on two wheels onto a residential street. Then she sighed and visibly deflated. For the first time, Killian noticed the head of gray hair in the front passenger seat. He groaned when the passenger himself turned to glare at him.

“I believe a thank you is in order for rescuing you, _Captain._ ”

“Thanks, _Crocodile_ ,” Killian bit out through clenched teeth.

“Calm down, Captain Guyliner,” Regina grumbled, “at least you didn’t wake up thinking you were married to him.”

Killian couldn’t help the grimace that crossed his face, and an awkward silence descended. The little girl – Lucy - wrapped her arm around his left bicep and leaned into him. He started a bit at the sudden affection.

“Grandpa!” she enthused. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

“Grandpa?” Killian’s eyes shifted to Henry in surprise.

“Yes,” Henry chuckled, then winced at the pain in his ribs, “she’s my daughter. Let’s just say I was up to more in the Enchanted Forest than just looking for a way to break this current curse. Good things happened to.”

Killian noted the obvious affection in Henry’s voice and the tenderness in his gaze. Killian looked down at Lucy, who still clutched his arm and beamed up at him. How could you love someone so much whom you just met? The thought immediately took his mind to his own daughter. He swallowed thickly as he regarded Lucy.

“How old are you?”

“Ten.”

Killian closed his eyes, immediate pain washing over him. “I missed it,” he choked out. “My baby girl. I missed everything.”

“No, you didn’t, Killian,” Regina assured him. The words were a balm to his wounded heart. Regina only used his name when she was completely sincere.

Henry struggled to sit up as he addressed Killian, “Don’t worry, Dad. Mom and my little sister are exactly as they were when you last saw them.”

“Where are they?” Killian asked, his nerves sparking in agitation to _do_ something.

“A place that isn’t easy to get to,” Rumpelstiltskin explained with vehemence in his voice, “but believe me, we will get back those we love. No matter the cost.”

Lucy picked up a duffel bag from the floor and handed it to Killian with a huge grin on her face. “I thought you might be missing this.”

He opened it to find his brace and his hook. He turned to Lucy and smiled, placing a kiss to her temple. “Thank you, lass.”

“Killian, do you remember all those times you whined about your true love kisses never working?” Regina quipped as she pressed harder on the gas. “Well, pucker up, pirate. Because your lips are our only hope.”

**Author's Note:**

> I so want a CS baby, but I don't want the kid to be separated from either parent. So, if it happens, I hope it plays out with time being frozen somehow. I'm assuming that has to happen anyway to explain why Henry has aged while no one else has. Just please, Once, no more kids being orphaned or abandoned!


End file.
